


Withered (Pathetic and Blind)

by hearts_kun



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Gen, Goro/Loki is only one interpretation, Loki is permanently present, M/M, Missing Scene, end of Kaneshiro's Palace arc, heavy thoughts, speculations on Goro's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 18:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15176609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_kun/pseuds/hearts_kun
Summary: Wherever Goro goes, Loki stays. His sickening horns, his sickening smile, his sickening nasty comments— Goro turns away, closes his eyes and covers his ears. But you can't really escape a part of your own cognition, can you? You will always be drawn to it.





	Withered (Pathetic and Blind)

**Author's Note:**

> jii-ro, thanks for editing!  
> propmt: snail parasite, sickening, no apparent sense of direction

“What are you looking for?” Loki asks, noticing Goro fumbling around the control panel.

“Shut up,” the answer follows. “Actually, just go die somewhere.”

Loki cackles at the offer. “Oh, I wish, my dear.”

Finally, the main screen blinks and reluctantly switches to the vault cameras. The sight of the Phantom Thieves beating up Shadow Kaneshiro, the disgusting fly that would lick any trash if it was gilded, is at best _boring_. Or so Loki thinks, since Goro suddenly smirks to himself, looking at Ren Amamiya in his fancy mask and slick red gloves, following his every movement. There’s something exciting about him, that makes Goro almost unnoticeably lean forward as time goes.

They spend a few minutes in silence. Excitement falls, and the smirk fades, leaving doubt and dissonance, drilling through the mind, like traces of dust. Loki tilts his head, curiously watching what happens next.

Goro catches his stare and sighs, and draws a carton of donuts closer, as if trying to distract himself.

“These are cognitive,” Loki says.

“You are, too.”

Despite everything, Goro tries chewing them, but soon spits, moves the carton away and crosses his arms on his chest. No use. Cognitive food is just as tasteless as Loki’s monotone voice is.

Distaste distorts his face, transforming it into a painfully tired mask. His voice is croaking and silent.

“This is ridiculous.”

“Them?”

“Them. You, me. These Palaces. You weren’t even supposed to be here like that. Look at them, theirs only appear when called for.”

“Doesn’t that mean you’re _always_ calling for me?”

Goro winces and diverts his eyes. He doesn’t like being reminded of their relationship. There’s something weird in it, they both feel it. It didn’t use to be like that.

They leave, unamused, when the battle predictably ends with the Phantom Thieves taking over the Treasure. As if anyone could expect anything less. Huh.

***

Loki stays when they leave the Metaverse. He stays when they come home. He stays when Goro pours orange juice and misses the glass, because his hands are shaking. He stays, when Goro cleans up and falls into the couch; when he sighs and looks at blurry photos of Ren Amamiya on his phone.

Loki settles himself on the armrest, curiously watching over Goro’s shoulder.

“Go the fuck to sleep,” Goro snaps, but his voice is tired and holds no power. Loki ignores.

“In the end, it _was_ him.”

“As much as I regret it.”

“Regret. _You?_ ”

“Am I not allowed to have regrets now?”

Loki silently wheezes, seeing Goro’s nervous smile. Goro lets out a chuckle, closing his eyes. His fingers run up to the striped tie, tapping it, then slowly loosening. His breath becomes quiet, but hasty, as if he’s running away from someone.

Loki slides down to the couch, resting his head on Goro’s shoulder. His massive black and white horns press against Goro’s neck. After a moment of hesitation, Goro raises his hands and touches them, caressing. He accurately traces the stripes without even peeking (he knows every centimeter by heart, and there’s something utterly wrong about it; something, that Goro doesn’t want to think about).

The horns are warm. They’re not mere bones. Pulsations run rhythmically under the thick soft skin. At the base of the horns, where they grow out of Loki’s head, there’s tender flesh, resembling what was supposed to be eyelids once. It twitches and shudders at every touch as if Loki is trying to blink or escape. The warmth coming from it is slowly enfolding Goro’s fingers. It’s almost sickening, but somehow… _calming_.

“When we first met, I thought you were blind,” Goro whispers. “Turns out…”

“…you’re the blind one?”

Loki turns his head, as if trying to see, and the horns press too hard into the neck, making Goro cough badly, open his eyes and hastily push his Persona to the other end of the couch. A mist, covering his sight, falls. His mouth distorts, going from disgust to pitiful sadness. What is cognitive, is supposed to stay cognitive, they say. But who said it, really?

Who said Goro couldn’t choose for himself? Who decided his life to be _this_?

“I don’t know anymore.”

“Do you want me to tell you?”

“Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t,” he cuts off.

Loki slides closer again, thirsty for physical contact, and rests his head on Goro’s laps. Constantly moving equal black and white stripes would make anyone dizzy; Goro stares blankly away, through the window. The tenderness leaves his hands, and the shiver, the anger, the bitterness come back.

Loki rubs his face against Goro’s hips, dangerously grinning, but behind this grin there is the same emptiness that lies in Goro. They whisper:

“You— _I—_ like him.”

“You— _I—_ think they’re just.”

“You— _I—_ want to avenge him.”

“You are— _I am—_ irredeemable— _irredeemable anyway._ ”

 _There’s no point in even trying,_ the thought runs through their minds, slowly becoming one. They killed so many people. So many people went mad because of them. Trains went off rails. Someone cried. Someone went to hospital. Now they know, there’s something else: this power can be used for good. Nothing changes; ‘good’ is something that they will never use it for, they were not made for that, their design was flawed from the start and they can never retreat. They’re trapped: a true criminal and his pitiful Persona, salty like a self-proclaimed comedian, but acting like a blind kitten, poking its nose into your armpit.

Pathetic, both of them.

“I guess that’s what you get for getting your hopes up for a moment,” one of them says, and it’s hard to distinguish one from another as Loki is wrapping himself around Goro, embracing him in a cold clinical hug. The feeling is so dry and hollow, that if they were to stop breathing, you would hear the rustling of wilted leaves every time they touched.

Trying to hold himself, Goro reaches out his foot to the table, accidentally shaking it. The empty glass of orange juice falls with a loud clatter. Disturbed by the sound, Loki twitches, parting with Goro, and Goro winces in pain and relief as if a large heavy unwanted extension of his body is being torn away. His breath is ragged, slow, anxious, _ironic, if a breath can be_.

“Whether I liked him or— No, it doesn’t matter. We’re dying soon either way. After us, the flood.”

Loki gives a smug smile, and there’s something familiarly creepy in it, that makes Goro invisibly tremble. Fear. Excitement. Disgust. They both don’t know. There’s something sickening between them, transparent spider web, sticky and slimy, strained from shoulder to shoulder, from finger to finger, from heart to heart.

From this point, any values are set to zero. There’s just the pulse of long-awaited revenge beating in their wrists, while the future is being blurred into complete nothingness. Further there is only void.

Goro Akechi might like Ren Amamiya. Phantom Thieves might be just. Masayoshi Shido might never understand the amount of pain and suffering he brought to this world. Every effort made now could be in vain later.

He caresses Loki’s face. Hatred to a piece of his own cognition ties into a tight knot in his chest— ties and dissolves slowly. Whatever happens—

There’s no turning back.


End file.
